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Stonewall Columbus Pride March by the numbers: See the 2025 turnout

Stonewall Columbus Pride March by the numbers: See the 2025 turnout

Yahoo5 days ago

The 2025 Stonewall Columbus Pride March had fewer marchers than in 2024, but more volunteers, according to Stonewall Columbus Executive Director Densil Porteous.
More than 18,000 people marched in the June 14 parade, around 2,000 people fewer than in 2024. At the same time, over 500 people volunteered for the event, around 100 more than did in 2024.
All told, over 650,000 people attended the weekend's Pride events, resulting in a $7.6 million economic impact for local businesses, Columbus and Franklin County, Porteous said in a June 16 press release.
"This weekend offered more than a festival—it was a statement. A mass declaration that LGBTQ+ lives matter, that we will not stay silent, and that in joy we find our collective strength," Porteous said in the release.
Porteous said certain companies backing out as sponsors this year contributed to the drop in marchers, but many of the volunteers were employees of companies that had chosen not to march.
Several companies, including Anheuser-Busch, Lowe's, Nissan, and Walmart, backed out of supporting Stonewall Columbus' 2025 pride celebrations amid a national backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion policies (DEI).
Retreats from businesses cost Stonewall Columbus around $125,000 in lost donations, about a fifth of its expected costs for Pride Month celebrations. Donations from the Columbus community and other partners filled the financial gap left by the companies, Porteous previously told The Dispatch.
The corporate retreat from supporting Pride events comes as the Trump administration has threatened companies that have DEI practices with investigations and prosecutions. DEI practices in the federal government were ended on day one of Trump's second term via an executive order, USA TODAY reported.
More: Pride fills streets of Columbus as No Kings rallies draw thousands across Ohio, nationwide
Breaking and Trending News Reporter Nathan Hart can be reached at NHart@dispatch.com and at @NathanRHart on X and at nathanhart.dispatch.com on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Pride March: How many people showed up in 2025?

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Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'
Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'

San Francisco Chronicle​

time38 minutes ago

  • San Francisco Chronicle​

Less than 20% of troops deployed to L.A. are on the ground. A former commander calls that ‘awful'

Less than 20% of the nearly 5,000 National Guard and Marine troops deployed to Los Angeles were actually on the ground in the city as of earlier this week, according to text messages by a state official with direct knowledge of staffing. That level is so low a former National Guard commander called it 'awful' in an interview with the Chronicle and questioned whether the $134 million deployment is justified. Of the 4,946 National Guard members and Marines deployed by President Donald Trump to Los Angeles in response to protests of immigration raids, just 978 were in the city, the state official with firsthand knowledge of National Guard staffing levels wrote Wednesday in the text messages obtained by the Chronicle. 'Federalized National Guard and USMC forces are grossly underutilized,' the state official wrote to another state official. 'That's at 19.77% utilization rate. Insane.' The officials were discussing how the deployment was pulling soldiers away from the National Guard's wildfire mitigation work. The Chronicle is not naming the officials in accordance with its policy on anonymous sources. The former National Guard commander, Brig. Gen. Peter Cross, told the Chronicle that the less than 20% rate is consistent with what he's heard in his role as president of the National Guard Association of California. Even accounting for soldiers working in shifts, he said, soldiers should be working at a rate much closer to 100%. 'It's awful. … So far as I understand, we're not even approaching, under that shifting model, full utilization of the soldiers,' he said. 'That's extremely concerning to me as a former military commander." Democrats have been saying for weeks that the deployment is a waste of money. 'You really have to use the National Guard as a last resort,' said Cross, a retired military police officer who was deployed to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. 'This is literally the most expensive option we as a society, as a country, can utilize.' Many of the troops deployed in Southern California in response to the protests are stationed at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, where the military has constructed massive tents to house them. The base is about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles in Orange County. It typically is used for the National Guard and Army Reserves. Trump began federalizing National Guard troops, who are normally under governors' control, nearly two weeks ago in response to protests over aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass opposed the deployment, saying that local and state police were sufficiently staffed to handle the protests. Trump argued that the protests had gotten out of hand. 'If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can't do their jobs, which everyone knows they can't, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!' the president wrote in a post on his social media website on Saturday, June 7. Shortly after the post, Trump issued an executive order federalizing 2,000 members of the National Guard for 60 days to respond to protests. The order does not specify that the troops be deployed in California or Los Angeles. Trump has since called up additional National Guard members and has also deployed 700 Marines to respond. The protests in Los Angeles, which grew after Trump deployed the troops, have since calmed significantly. Earlier this week, Bass lifted a curfew she had imposed last week for the area of downtown that has seen the most protests. Newsom has sued to regain control of the National Guard troops. He argues that Trump's federalizing of the troops is illegal and amounts to a dangerous overreach by the president. On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump could retain control of the Guard troops while legal challenges proceed in lower courts. 'This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk,' Newsom said in a speech several days after Trump deployed the troops. 'When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. … California may be first — but it clearly won't end here. Other states are next.' Most of the 300 National Guard members who had been working on a vegetation management team called Joint Task Force Rattlesnake have been taken off the wildfire prevention work as part of the Los Angeles deployment, according to Newsom's office. Newsom has also criticized the deployment for moving National Guard troops who had been doing drug interdiction work at the border. 'You just pulled National Guard I placed at the border who were stopping fentanyl smuggling,' Newsom wrote on social media in response to a post from a Trump administration official. 'Now they're twiddling their thumbs in LA.' Lt. Carl Trujillo, a spokesperson for the California Military Department, referred all questions about the deployment to U.S. Army North Public Affairs. He said that when National Guard troops were deployed to assist with wildfire recovery in Los Angeles earlier this year, they were stationed at the Rose Bowl and a base in Malibu, not the training base in Los Alamitos. He said the base is not typically used to station large numbers of troops for extended periods of time because it is relatively small. U.S. Army North Public Affairs declined to respond to questions about staffing levels and whether it was typical that less than 20% of the deployed troops would be used in Los Angeles on any given day, citing security concerns. The office said that the National Guard troops are being housed at Los Alamitos, while the Marines are located at Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, also in Orange County. Photos posted online by the military show the tents at the base in Los Alamitos, with some housing rows upon rows of cots and folding tables set up like a cafeteria. Images taken by a Chronicle photographer from a helicopter that flew near the base show multiple massive tents and other temporary structures that have been erected on the base. Other photos obtained by the Chronicle from inside the base also show soldiers in fatigues walking around the area as well as construction projects with cranes and wooden pallets. A nearby resident, who declined to give his name, said he has a good view of the base from his backyard. He said it's common for troops to stage there for training. He said troops had camped in smaller tents when they arrived, but now are staying in a massive tent that he estimated is longer than a football field but about the same width. The resident described the National Guard troops as 'wonderful neighbors' even if they make noise early in the morning. Reached by phone Thursday afternoon, he said he could hear troops marching down the middle of a road near his home. Cross said it's not surprising that National Guard soldiers would be stationed at the base in Los Alamitos and that it's normal protocol to build massive tents to house soldiers. But he noted that the activity at the base underscores why deploying the Guard is also the most expensive option available in a situation like this. It also takes a personal toll on the soldiers who are deployed, who must leave their families, their jobs and their educational pursuits behind. Typically the Guard should be deployed only when all local law enforcement options are exhausted. That doesn't seem to be the case here, he said. 'This melodramatic talk about people worried about the military shooting someone or being more violent than is necessary — I'm just not worried about that because of the training we have,' he said. 'I'm just skeptical whether we were needed.' In his current role with the California National Guard, Cross oversees the Youth and Community Program, which runs educational programs for struggling teens. The programs have continued to function, he said, even as many of the soldiers who work on them have been deployed. But if the deployment is still happening in a few weeks when the new school session starts, he's worried he'll have to turn more troubled teens away. 'When you're called up, you're pulled up from your employer, from your life,' Cross said. 'You want it to have value, you want it to have purpose, and if you're sitting in your armory, not tasked, that will erode your morale.'

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